By Tom Breihan on August 4, 2009 at 11:05 a.m. EDT

Back in March, we told you about the mysterious video for Modest Mouse's "King Rat" that the late actor Heath Ledger had begun directing before his January 2008 death. And yesterday, we told you that the clip was set to debut on MySpace Music today. Well, MySpacehas the video now, and yeah, this looks like exactly the kind of thing that someone might come up with after spending a couple of months rocking Joker makeup and pretending to mutilate people.

By Ryan Dombal on August 3, 2009 at 2:25 p.m. EDT

Back in March, we reported on a whispered-about music videoÂ for the Modest Mouse song "King Rat", directed by Heath Ledger. Now we know: the video does indeed exist and it'll premiere on MySpace tomorrow.

According to a press release, the animated clip is a visual plea against "the illegal commercial whale hunts taking place off the coast of Australia." While the clip was "fully conceived" by Ledger, it was unfinished when he passed away in January 2008. After Ledger's death, the film and music company the Masses, which counted Ledger as a member, finished the video with support from Modest Mouse frontman Isaac Brock.

The Playlist points out that the video was for "King Rat", a We Were Dead Before The Ship Even Sank bonus track. In an interview with VH1 in spring 2007, Isaac Brock said, "Heath Ledger's been wanting to do a video for one of the songs that didn't make it on the record, 'King Rat.' Terry Gilliam is going to help animate it. Heath and I have a mutual friend and when we were in Australia, my fiancé and some of us in the band went out on a boat with him and his family and friends and talked about the idea. He's got a video production company and was interested in working on something. We were talking back and forth for a while. The idea seemed sort of dropped, but then he just sent me an email saying that he wanted to do it. And I love me some Terry Gilliam. I hope it works out and I don't sound like a fucking liar at the end of this."

What is known: According to Fords, New Jersey indie record store Vintage Vinyl (via the Modest Mouse fan site Interstate-8), at least-- is that Modest Mouse's long-rumored new EP, No One’s First and You’re Next, is now due out in early August. The release will be preceded by four 7" singles, with the first one coming out on April 18 for Record Store Day. It features new songs "Satellite Skin" and "Guilty Cocker Spaniels". Thanks to reader Mikeal Davis for the tip.

The band wrap up their current U.S. tour this weekend in Philadelphia and New York.

By Matthew Solarski on January 23, 2008 at 11:30 a.m. EST

The already startling death of actor Heath Ledger has taken on another startling dimension following the revelation that Ledger courted a self-proclaimed obsession with another tragic figure, late English folk singer Nick Drake. This obsession even manifested itself in a Drake music video.

"I was obsessed with an artist by the name of Nick Drake," Ledger explained at a September 2007 Venice Film Festival press conference [via MTV.com]. Ledger was promoting I'm Not There at the time, in which he plays Bob Dylan, along with several other actors and actresses.

"I was obsessed with [Drake's] story and his music and I pursued it for a while and [I] still have hopes to kind of tell his story one day. But it kind of died away, faded away, because I...He was a very mysterious figure and I felt like I would be taking too many liberties."

The body of 28-year-old Ledger was found yesterday (January 22) in a Manhattan apartment. Since sleeping pills were found nearby, Ledger's death was widely reported as being most likely drug-related. However, according to the Associated Press, an autopsy performed today proved inconclusive, and TMZ.com reports that Ledger had pneumonia at the time of his death.

Drake, meanwhile, died in 1974 at the age of 26 from an apparent overdose of the antidepressant amitriptyline.

Ledger created a black-and-white video clip that was shown at a pair of exhibits devoted to Drake last year, according to MTV.com and Billboard.com reports.

As the MTV.com report explains, "A representative for Drake's estate described the 'gorgeous' and 'extremely moving' clip as a stark black-and-white composition, consisting mainly of the director turning the camera on himself. In the end, Ledger is seen drowning himself in a bathtub."

The song playing during this is Drake's "Black Eyed Dog", purportedly the last song the English singer ever wrote and allegedly a reference to Winston Churchill's description of depression.

The estate of Nick Drake, which owns the Ledger video, has not yet decided whether to release it.